I hear this all the time… usually from Mouth Breathers… “Those SIG and S&W 1911’s are crap because they have external extractors. No gun should have them.”
Dude – Just shut it. Most modern autopistols all have external extractors. All the guns that are well known for utter reliability have external extractors. John Mosses Browning even put them on the Hi-Power! Glocks. SIG’s. Beretta… very few guns have Internal Extractors and those that do generally are problematic.
I’ve shot a lot of 1911’s. I’ve got a lot of 1911’s. And what I don’t have or have ever shot – was a 1911 with an external extractor that had a problem that was extractor related. Ever. You don’t hear about Glocks and FNS’s with Extractor problems… do you? No! You really don’t! Sure – maybe somewhere out there in the vastness of the internets, under some dark rock in a dark corner – someone had a Glock Extractor problem. But really, on the whole… such problems are pretty much just non-existant.
If you think an external extractor is problem – you really just don’t know what you are talking about.
The one thing that I wish would leave the 1911 universe is the speed bump on the bottom of the grip safety. As a left handed shooter, the deal breaker is that speed bump, not the lack of an ambidextrous safety.
That’s not so much of an issue either as they can be replaced.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the whole “external extractors are crap!” business started when Kimber introduced their Series II models. One of the improvements Kimber made to the Series II was external extractors. But its my understanding that Kimber buggered up the tensioning or something for the extractors, and/or Kimber’s QC took a major dump right about the same time they introduced the Series II. So it was Kimber screwing something (or multiple somethings) up that led to the external extractor getting a bad rap.
But JMB didn’t actually design the Hi-Power with an external extractor. The Hi-Power had an internal extractor until FN switched to an external extractor in the early 60s. Said change, I’m given to understand, dramatically improved the Hi-Power’s reliability. So the “external extractors suck!” crowd is still full of crap.
Back in my US Army days the procurement delivered a bad lot of M1911 extractors. They were dead straight and didn’t tension against the rim. I got out of the small arms biz and became a clerk but I was told an order came down to check the packaging and scrap the parts. It was from an order so old the company was long out of business.
Geoff
Who notes some M-2HB parts in stock were WWII vintage.
What about series 70 vs series 80?
The 1911 doesn’t need the series 80 additional safety mechanism. It’s a waste and it hinders the 1911’s advantage of having such a wonderful trigger.
The interesting thing is, the only 1911 I can think of off the top of my head that has an external extractor and is Series 70 is S&W’s E Series. Am I off here?